Kaffed in and un-Don

     We'd just sat down to lunch yesterday when there was an ominous thunder-crash of a noise from somewhere in the house. Had the Christmas tree toppled over? Was it a large painting slipping from the wall? We rushed to investigate and discovered that one of the study shelves had come loose from its moorings and around eighty big, heavy books had cascaded to the floor.

    It was Mr. C. who put up those shelves some months ago, and I'm sure that despite being a self-labelled "unskilled operative" in these matters he did a proper job; it's my fault that it's given way as I have obviously overloaded it: one Kaffe Fassett too many! Yes, it's the knitting books which have done it (and those Rowan magazines weigh a ton in themselves), and all those smart hardbacks have proved too much for the rawl plugs and screws. Actually, it is, I think, Monty Don who finally tipped the balance as the knitting collection was adjacent to gardening and it was his hefty Ivington Diaries which was most recently added to the shelf and thus proved to be 'the last straw'.

    Ho hum - with piles of the displaced here and there we're now proving that 'books do furnish a floor', though according to Books do furnish a room by Leslie Geddes-Brown, we're not the first to do so: "When Hugh Trevor-Roper was Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, his Aubusson carpet developed so many holes that old copies of Country Life were used to plug the gaps. Although the rest of the room was organized and elegant, the magazines added a touch of true English eccentricity."!

Comments

[sandpiper]

Oh dear. Some of our bookshelves are very feeble MFI cheap jobbies; they bow in the middle. But we've never had a complete collapse.

I had a fondle of the Ivington Diaries whilst out shopping this morning. I couldn't justify £25, but it's half price online...

[knittingoutloud]

Someone said "a room without books is like a body without a soul". But they can be heavy! We have resorted to stacks on the floor at times.

[Alison]

Your description of

"When Hugh Trevor-Roper was Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, his Aubusson carpet developed so many holes that old copies of Country Life were used to plug the gaps. Although the rest of the room was organized and elegant, the magazines added a touch of true English eccentricity."

This so reminds me of when the ladies of Cranford used newspaper to cover their much prized new carpet to stop the sun from fading it!

True English eccentricity at it's best:-)

[GeraniumCat]

Hmm, I sometimes worry about my shelves giving way and burying me when I'm in bed - perhaps I'd better add a resolution about finally getting round to adding some more shelves...but where?

[Fran]

My husband is convinced the bookshelf in the sitting room will collapse. It is rather full, and now the piles atop are reaching the ceiling. Just have to buy another shelf then, and start to fill the dining room.

[Karen]

Knitting books tend to be heavy. Could you pile them up and make a coffee table?

[misa]

That's a pretty nice pile of books, even when they're on the floor.

[Margaret Powling]

Ditto, Fran, re the prospect of collapsing bookshelves. Husband installed the bookshelves in our study more than a dozen years ago. They are supported by an internal wall (not a solid wall, incidentally) but they really rest on the floor so shouldn't move, but they certainly look to be parting company with the wall at ceiling height ... I think they're fine, but he says the weight is too great ... but where do we put all the books; I've already weeded over and over and those that remain are those I want to keep!
Having so many books, Karen, suggests that we all might make coffee tables out of them; indeed, some publishers ought to make all their books the same size so that this could be more easily achived: coffee table books indeed!

[Dark Puss]

You are right to worry, this happened at my cottage but fortunately no one was in the bed at the time. We immediately removed the bookshelves from the wall. Anyone in the bed would have been quite badly hurt.